Road Trip Day 3: Newport, Rhode Island

After spending the night in Connecticut, we got up early the next morning and headed for our next destination: Newport, Rhode Island. It took us longer than planned to get there… as we were driving, we realized that we were missing out on beautiful scenery by sticking to the interstate. So we detoured and explored Connecticut a little bit.

Our first stop was walking along a beautiful beach. It was quiet, peaceful and a relaxing way to start our morning.

Once we left the beach, we drove through an area that was pretty much the definition of a quaint, New England (although technically CT isn’t considered New England) town. Seeing the old houses, the gorgeous fall foliage and pumpkins everywhere got me really excited about the rest our of trip.

I’m a sucker for overlooks. We saw this one in Mystic, CT and stopped for a picture. It’s when we realized how old we are… We were the only one’s there under 50.

I was in love with Newport the second I saw it. And on a side note, the bridges up north are so much more visually interesting than they are in the south.

Our hotel had a Nautical theme going on, and honestly was the most disappointing Marriott we’ve ever stayed in. The quality was lower than all of the lower end Marriott chains, which was unfortunate since it was about $250 a night.

We had lunch at the Aquidneck Lobster Company. It wasn’t my first choice for lunch, but it ended up being absolutely fantastic.

The view wasn’t too bad =)

And the food was even better. We started with the Stuffed Quahogs. These were fantastic. They were stuffed the the quahog, chorizo, cheese, peppers and the breading. The best thing about eating seafood in New England? They don’t cheap out and serve you a dish that’s mostly breading and very little fish.

That was also the case with my cod sandwich. HUGE piece of cod, very little breading and so much flavor. This was delicious.

I didn’t try Graham’s shrimp po’boy, but he said it was delicious.

After lunch, we headed out to the cliffs to do the cliff walk (thanks Pinterest for this). Unfortunately a pretty significant portion was closed due to Hurricane Sandy damage, but it was still a gorgeous way to spend the afternoon.

Walking back to our hotel, we found St. Mary’s Church. Historically significant since JFK and Jackie were married there in 1953.

For dinner that night we went to the Brick Alley Pub & Restaurant. Good food, mediocre service. The waitress was very meh. The servers knocked multiple drinks over. The salad bar was mediocre (but it was free…). But the food was good. Especially the lobster mac & cheese that I ordered. This was a HUGE portion of rich, creamy, decadent macaroni & cheese. I was only able to eat about half of this.

Once again, they didn’t skimp on the seafood. There were HUGE chunks of lobster throughout this.

Don’t order the sauteed mushrooms, though. I ordered those to go with my mac & cheese, and they were awful. They were watery, flavorless and tasted like someone had just opened a can.